A rectangular platform was built in the center of the hall, crammed between the innermost interior columns. At one end of this platform was a roped-off section; the rest was taken up with an enormously long table that had the center cut out and one end open. Around the table sat-she had the gift of counting quickly-thirty-one council members. The grand gentleman sat at his ease, smirking. The proud lady yawned as if to say that her time was too valuable to waste on such trivia. The ancient woman sat hunched in her chair, with a young attendant whispering into an ear. One at that table could not hide the cloud of anger on his face. He tapped the fingers of his left hand impatiently, repetitively, and with a reckless energy. Some glanced at him with a flash of annoyance in the grimace of their mouths or the narrowing of their eyes; others ignored him; a few looked at him with anxious mouths and then glanced toward the silent reeve, if that's what he was. These were all signals to one trained in the exacting commerce of human interaction. The restless council member didn't matter to the others seated at the council table, she realized. He was the odd man out, and somehow it was the presence of the observant reeve they wondered at, and worried about. Yet time and again, the restless council member glanced into the crowd and met the eye of some attentive soul, like the turbaned older man. Then he would nod, acknowledging that one-or another-or another. He had a huge following in the hall. He did not look once at the reeve.
In the open section where the table had been cut away, at a minuscule writing desk, sat the harried clerk, pen scratching on paper. Next to and above her stood an elevated platform not much more than a stride's length squared, ringed with a railing that also served as the ladder to get up and down. Here presided a small woman wearing a brilliant peacock-blue robe belted with a wine-red sash. Her hair was mostly hidden by an artfully folded kerchief of an eye-dazzling yellow that did not, in truth, flatter her complexion.
"The suppliants approach," she cried in the nasal soprano that had opened the proceedings. She bent an arm, gestured, and the caravan master stepped up onto the platform. "Master Iad, do you give witness that this is the mercenary captain who guarded your caravan from the town called Sarida in the empire and over the Kandaran Pass here to Olossi? That this is the woman he names as his wife and business partner?"
A second attendant scurried over to hand Master Iad a lacquered stick.
Taking it, he spoke. "I do witness it, in the name of the Holy One, Taru the Witherer, to whom I served my apprentice year." He looked at Anji, nodded with a flicker of movement in the way his mouth turned down. A message, but Mai could not interpret it.
"Will you state, again, that they misrepresented themselves to you when you first met them at the caravansarai in Sarida."
His mouth twitched. He rubbed his right eye with his left hand. "They did, but as I said before, they were completely honorable and discharged their obligation-"
"Step down, Master Iad. You are finished."
Master Iad flinched, and hesitated. Before he could speak again, the attendant snatched the stick out of his hands and scuttled away to stand behind the writing desk. With a shake of the shoulders, the caravan master stepped down. If one could judge by the rush of emotion that softened his taut expression and heightened the color in his cheeks, he was either grateful to be released from cross-examination, or shamed by his own testimony.
"Let the suppliants step forward."
Anji and Mai stepped up. Out of the back of the hall, from the direction of the handsome young man, burst a flirting whistle. Folk laughed appreciatively. Men eyed her, craning forward to get a better look. Anji raised an eyebrow-just that-and there was a shuffling of feet, and knees needing to be scratched, as any number of gazes dropped away.
The envoy said, "Master Feden claims the right to speak."
"Wolves, we call them," said the grand gentleman into the awkward silence that followed. He spoke in a voice that carried effortlessly to each corner of the hall and even, indeed, into the rafters. He held his right hand with palm up, cupped around a large white stone. "Men who hire themselves out to fight."
Belatedly, Mai realized that children crouched up in those rafters, half hidden in the gloom as they peered down from their high perches.
"In the wilderness we walk softly, hoping not to attract their notice. In the fields, we kill them for stalking our sheep. Why then would we open our gates and allow them into our city? Are we all such fools?"
The last word he roared. Mai actually started, the force of his voice like a wind battering her. Anji did not move, did not react.
The angry council member leaped to his feet amid a murmur of speculation. "What of the attack at the border post? The rot infecting the ordinands, some of whom conspired with ospreys to rob merchants? What of the testimony of Master Iad and Master Busrad, both caravan masters of long experience and good character? Do you dismiss all this?"
"Master Calon, do sit and not strain yourself. I still hold the stone." The grand gentleman pursed a smile in the manner of a discerning customer who finds the bruised peach lurking at the bottom of the basket, the one he supposes you have been attempting to foist upon him. "The prisoner is dead. These caravan masters might have concocted the story between them. They might be in the pay of this wolf. He's an outlander. We already know he lied to the caravan master in Sarida, in order to get the hire. We can't trust him."
Anji spoke, startling, clear, cool. The accent of his arkinga made him seem even more out of place, very much a black wolf among brightly plumaged birds. "What of the reeve? The one from Clan Hall? He journeyed here before us. He came to alert this council to the corruption ripening in the border guards. Where is he?"
A cough came from back by the door, where the guards stood. Folk shrugged and rubbed their chins. The council members stared at Anji. The man with the broken nose had vanished. Mai had not even seen him go.
"There is no reeve here," said the grand gentleman. "Nor were you given permission to speak."
"Yet there was a reeve," said Anji. "Dressed very like that man who just left. He called himself Joss. He came from Clan Hall, from a city he named Toskala."
"Out of the north," said the man with a gloating sneer. "Every manner of villain has crawled north into the shadows. He might have been anyone."
"Have you many of those great eagles?" asked Anji, with all the appearance of surprised curiosity. "That 'anyone' might ride one? I confess, I have never seen such an intimidating creature as that raptor."
"A spy. A traitor. These wolves come bearing tales of a conspiracy between Kotaru's holy ordinands, and unholy ospreys, yet their so-called prisoner is dead and conveniently cannot defend himself against these charges. They might have murdered Captain Beron themselves!"
"If you mean to accuse us," said Anji, "then justice decrees we be allowed to defend ourselves."
"Enough of these interruptions!" The grand gentleman slapped his free hand onto the table, making not a few people jump, and indicated the woman on the platform. "Envoy, I ask for this point of order: that we conclude, having determined that this wolf and his pack be banished from all the territories surrounding Olossi and with whom we have friendly relations. Red in favor. Black to decline."
"No!" Master Calon leaped to his feet as many in the crowd rose with angry voices to goad him on. "You refuse to see the danger. The caravan masters vouch for this man. He and his men acted honorably. We need to strengthen our militia against the rising tide out of the north. Our livelihoods, our very houses, are in danger. Our own messengers sent into the north do not return, yet you do nothing. You ignore the reports from the north at your peril! You shrug off this tale of ospreys along West Spur because you are the fools, not us! I demand an open vote, each member to state a choice. I call for an open vote."